Draven Jett
A survivor of the Great War, '''Draven Jett '''wholeheartedly embraced the new world, becoming a raider lieutenant. Cruel and merciless, his reign of terror would be ended in a way that he could have never expected. History Before the Great War, Draven Jett had it all. He was born into a wealthy family and grew up wanting for nothing, even as the rest of the world was sliding towards the seemingly inevitable apocalypse. While his family’s wealth and connections ensured that he would have a top-notch college education, he was also driven by his own determination to get ahead. While Draven had no qualms about falling back on his family’s money, he preferred to succeed on his own merits, a personality trait that would serve him well. Draven was hired straight out of college by Poseidon Energy, who put him to work on several different key projects. Despite his relative youth, he quickly advanced up the corporate ladder based on the successful results of his own projects. Much of that success had come from shamelessly exploiting the work of his subordinates, a trait that seemed to only endear him to his superiors. Draven saw himself as being a high-flyer within the company, and felt that his career was on a fast track to the upper ranks of the company. However, fate would dictate otherwise. In October of 2077, Draven and his husband Steve were on a (company sponsored) skiing trip to Mount Pleasant. The pair of them were there when the Great War erupted, watching from the resort as mushroom clouds erupted in the distance over the mountains. Like many of the other staff and tourists, managed to survive the fallout from nuclear devastation more or less unscathed, at least physically. However, they were also now effectively trapped in the resort as civilisation crumbled around them. Draven knew that now all his money and influence meant nothing; all he could rely on was his own skills and drive in order to survive. While he at first sided with those that called for a pooling of resources and sharing of what they had, he also began to listen quietly to those who had their own ideas of what needed to be done. Regardless of what the outcome was, Draven’s goal was to ensure his own survival while finding some way to get ahead in the new world. It would be two unconnected events that would reshape Draven and see him commit to a new way of life. The first was Steve’s being badly injured in an unexpected animal attack. While he had survived the initial assault, his wounds were infected. With a lack of supplies and skilled medics, it became clear that his chances of recovery were slim. The second was learning that the Charlestown provisional government had chosen not to send supplies and aid to the resorts, citing their own problems as a reason. Draven immediately threw his support behind David and Rosalyn Jefferies, the new leaders of the survivor community. The pair of them advocated taking what they needed by force, a path that he saw as being the only way forwards to survive. As eagerly as he had learned the skills that had made him such a corporate shark, Draven soaked up those that would make him into an entirely different sort of raider. While he had previous experience as a sport hunter, now he was learning how to fight and kill. In early 2078, Steve succumbed to his injuries. Draven buried him, effectively burying his past in the process as he moved on with his new life, embracing it wholeheartedly with nothing to hold him back. His first attacks were against the other survivor communities in the Divide, aimed at securing supplies while bringing them into the fold of the emergent raider movement one way or another. In his very first attack, Draven killed two men, not showing the slightest hint of remorse at his actions. Soon he was promoted to leading a small band who roamed across the region looking for more survivors to prey upon. As the number of Raiders grew, their community began to divide into a coalition of allied bands based around powerful leaders and differing philosophies. Draven remained with the Cutthroats, who under the control of David and Rosalyn, remained the most powerful of the raider bands. As the raiders solidified their control over the divide, they began to expand outwards both to the east and west, seeking targets in the rest of Appalachia. Eager for vengeance against those that he saw as having abandoned him and, through their inaction, caused Steve’s death, Draven gladly took the lead in attacks against those communities on either side of the divide. He proved to be just as merciless as he had been in the divide, even though he was now facing better armed and more organised opponents. Like the other raiders, his attacks quickly escalated beyond taking what he needed to survive; now Draven sought to make himself as rich and comfortable as this new world would allow him to be. In doing such he also demonstrated a streak of cruel brutality that only served to further his new career. In the midst of this, his personal life also took an unexpected but not unwanted turn. Draven met Jackson Chen, a younger raider who was a member of the Blackwater Raiders, in February of 2080. The pair of them found themselves attracted to each other, and began an intimate relationship that was remarkably caring given what the pair of them both did to survive. Jackson would leave the Blackwater Raiders to join the Cutthroats in order to be with Draven, and serve under him while continuing their relationship. For Draven, his love of Jackson became his one island of sanity, a refuge in a sea of violence and chaos. While the pair of them were still raiders and as bloody and brutal as they came, they also had each other to keep them grounded and sane despite all that was going on around them. Several times Draven considered proposing to Jackson, but wound up holding himself back each time for fear that openly expressing his love would be seen as a sign of weakness that his rivals could exploit. This affair was not to last, however. In January of 2083, Draven lead a particularly bold attack on Summerville, hoping to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Christmas Flood. As expected, the Responders protecting the town were weak and disorganised, still reeling from the destruction of Charlestown and the losses they had suffered. Confident of an easy victory, Draven was not prepared for what happened to him next. A lone woman, one of the Order of Mysteries, ambushed his group as they advanced into the town. In a swift move, she killed Jackson before anyone knew what was going on. By the time that Draven realised what had happened, she had cut down two more of his band and injured him before seemingly disappearing into thin air. Her attack bought enough time for the Responders to rally, and press their counterattack on his forces. Wounded and fearful of further ambushes, Draven was forced to retreat without even recovering Draven’s body. While he was devastated by the loss, Draven did his best to funnel his emotions, turning his grief into rage. As soon as he was able he was again back in the field, leading his attacks with a renewed vigour and brutality. His recovery had been aided by ample use of chems to dull the pain and improve his fighting condition. Like many other Raiders, he soon developed an addiction, in this case being to Med-X (although he also used Psychobuff to improve his performance). Draven would never form another long-term relationship, having twice lost the man in his life. He did, however, have a string of short-term lovers. By mid 2096, it became apparent to Draven and the other surviving Raiders that something was terribly wrong. While the apparent destruction of the Brotherhood of Steel should have bought them some relief, instead there were reports of massive bats roaming across the Mire and Cranberry Bog, leaving devastation in their wake. It soon became clear that these Scorchbeasts were not only agents of destruction, but that they were spreading some sort of plague that was transforming those that it came into contact with into ghoul-like creatures. Feeling that it was inevitable that these Scorchbeasts would push up into the divide once they were through with whatever was left of the Free States, Draven decided to take his warband without orders and head westwards into the Forest. His hope was that there he would be safe or, at the very least, he would have more time to make an escape into Ohio or possibly Pennsylvania. He felt that the Responders would be too busy with the Scorchbeasts to deal with his small band, allowing them to move quietly. Instead, he found himself caught up in a flood of Raiders who were also fleeing the region, fearful of what might come next. Rather than the quick flight he has planned on, Draven’s band got bogged down in the fighting as the Responders tried to head off what they saw as an invasion from the Savage Divide. He did his best to keep his force coherent and together, even as their numbers began to be whittled down by their opposition. By this stage, Draven’s only concern was for his own survival; his men existed to be little more than shields for him. Ultimately, none of this mattered. The Scorchbeasts surged down from the divide, bringing the Scorched and their plague with them. Soon the Forest region was under siege as the populace were being transformed en-masse, while the uncontaminated were being wiped out. Draven abandoned what was left of his band and fled, determined to stay alive and avoid being transformed at any cost. When escape proved impossible, he tried instead to hide and hope that he could simply remain clean. Having spent several days on the run while convinced that he was the last human in Appalachia, Draven ended up hiding in first place he could find as Scorched and Scorchbeasts milled around him. For several hours he remained locked inside a portable toilet, alternatively weeping and praying as he tried to figure an escape. Not that it mattered, as his hiding place was simply ‘dusted’ by a Scorchbeast, contaminating him. In his last coherent moments, Draven attempted suicide before he succumbed and was transformed into a Scorched. Emerging from his hiding place, he joined the ranks of the transformed, his entire life erased and subsumed into their collective mind. His last words were captured on a holotape, originally intended to be a final confessional. In October of 2102 he became aware of a new presence in Appalachia; the presence of living humans, wearing distinctive blue suits. The Scorched’s collective mind identified these as being Vault Dwellers, a concept that Draven had recollections of. He had seen Vault 94 ambassadors over twenty years ago. However, these individuals seemed to be far more aggressive and willing to defend themselves than those he had seen in past. Draven engaged in several skirmishes with an individual, both in person and through the other members of the Scorched collective intelligence. Furthermore, this individual was seen around raider camps and other sites where Draven had been in life. These occurrences triggered more memories, driving him towards the ruined town of Monmogah where, in life, he had hidden a stash of loot as an emergency reserve. He expected that this Vault Dweller would try to claim the treasure for themselves. Seeing them as a threat, he gathered a force of Scorched under his control and took up positions within the town. As expected, the Vault Dweller arrived, but rather than coming alone they had bought allies with them. A firefight resulted as the small group of humans did their best to fight back against the swarm of Scorched attackers. During the battle, one of the Vault Dwellers, the same one that he had encountered months ago, was able to sneak around his forces. Before he realised what was going on, she ambushed him and cut him down before he could respond. The last remnants of Draven Jett died in a hail of gunfire, finally freeing him from the Scorched’s grasp. Personality At his core, Draven Jett was greedy and ruthless. He was driven to get ahead, and to make his life as comfortable as possible. His ambition was only fuelled by his intelligence; always a smart man, he was also well educated and well read, something that helped his pre-war career rise. However, he also did not rely on skill alone, and was more than willing to play politics to get ahead. Inside the office, he was adept at manipulation and picking the winning side in a given scenario. All of these traits would translate well into his post-war life as a Raider. Draven quickly realised that in the new, post-war world, the best way to survive would be to take what he needed from those weaker than himself. He found others who felt the same, and threw his support behind them. At the same time, he sought out and surrounded himself with those that he felt he could control and would not be threatened by; the right mixture of viciousness and reliability. While Draven did engage in recreational chem use like many other raiders, he was careful to temper his indulgences and keep a level head. Despite all his drive and ruthless execution, he did have a strangely romantic side. Draven genuinely loved his husband, Steve, and was devastated when he died. However, he also was careful not to show that side, lest it be seen as a weakness and used against him. Following Jackson’s death, Draven never took another lover, but he did have a series of short affairs with other men. When he succumbed to the Scorched Plague, Draven’s personality was completely devoured and subsumed into their collective mind. Appearance Before his transformation, Draven was a tall, solidly built man. Handsome, even if not remarkably such, he had fair skin, brown hair and blue eyes. Before the Great War he carefully maintained a clean-cut corporate image; clean shaven, neat hair and usually dressed in a sharp suit. As a raider, he fully embraced the lifestyle down to his appearance; for much of his time he sported a thick beard and a Mohawk. Over the course of his raider career he gained a number of scars as the result of their physically demanding lifestyle. Draven wore these with pride, as if to display his dedication. Category:Raiders Category:Appalachia Category:Scorched